1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and an information processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a print industry, a print-on-demand (POD) scheme where digital data created from desktop publishing (DTP) is directly printed without a plate-making process has been widely used.
In the POD printing scheme small lot printing or quick delivery is possible and variable printing where printing contents are partially changed is possible.
According to the print industry, printers for the POD have been released from each printer maker. Even in the printers for the POD, in-line finishing where various finishers are mounted and used can be performed. In general, various finishers for the printers for the POD have a higher function than that of finishers of printers for an office.
If the printers for the POD use the in-line finishing, printing and finishing processes are integrated. Therefore, working for extracting paper discharged from the printer and setting the paper to the finisher is not to be performed.
Meanwhile, a finisher that specializes only for the finishing has been widely used in the print industry in these days. In general, a finishing specialized machine has a higher function and can perform a higher-speed operation, as compared to an in-line finisher of the printer for the POD.
Even when it is determined that a finished product is most suitable for the POD printing, if a function or speed is insufficient in the in-line finishing, a printing process is generally executed by a machine for the POD and a finishing process is generally executed by a finishing specialized machine. Such printing scheme is called off-line finishing or near-line finishing (a difference between the off-line finishing and the near-line finishing is described in detail below).
However, since the printing process and the finishing process are individually executed, a printed material that is discharged to a paper discharge destination of a printer is to be carried to a paper feed port of a finisher, which results in causing a load to a worker (user). A method that alleviates the load to the worker is suggested (for example, refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-186521).
When binding printing of a plurality of copies is performed by off-line finishing or near-line finishing, the worker sorts the printed materials discharged to a paper discharge destination of the printer and set the printed materials to the paper feed port of the finisher. More specifically, copies that can be processed by the finisher at a time is to be counted and extracted from a bundle of discharged paper and set the copies to the paper feed port of the finisher.
Further, since an upper limit of a loadable amount exists in the paper discharge destination of the printer, if a loaded amount exceeds the upper limit of the loadable amount in a specific paper discharge destination, the paper discharge destination of the printed materials is switched to another paper discharge destination or the printer stops a printing operation until the paper of the paper discharge destination is removed. When the paper discharge destination is switched to another paper discharge destination, the paper discharge destination is not necessarily switched to another paper discharge destination at a break of the copy.
For this reason, the worker is to search the break of a copy, combine the printed materials discharged to the paper discharge destination, which is in short of a copy, and printed materials discharged to the switched destination to form a copy, and set them to the paper feed port of the finisher.
Similarly, when the printing operation is stopped, for example, after the paper is temporarily removed from the paper discharge destination of the paper, the paper is to be combined with the paper discharged thereafter to form a copy.
Further, when the printing operation is stopped, since the printing operation of the printer is temporarily stopped until the paper of the paper discharge destination is removed, the completion of the printing process delays, and processes including a finishing process that is performed after the printing process delay.
Further, extraction of paper corresponding to a certain number of copies from the paper discharge destination of the printer and setting of the paper to the finisher during the printing are rarely performed, because a load, such as the recognition or count of the copies, is generated to the worker.
In the related art, when printing of a plurality of copies is performed, the printing process and the finishing process can be performed partially in parallel. However, since the printing process and the finishing process are performed in series in consideration of the worker's load, the throughput of the printing and finishing processes cannot be improved.